The 6:20 Man

Chapter 45

Four fifteen a.m.

Ten minutes into his workout at the high school. Warm, muggy, dark, cloudy skies, sprinkles of a predawn summer rain commencing.

Devine was already loosened up, sweaty, into a rhythm, trying to focus on his physical side, while his mental side was all over the place. There was simply too much to process. And whenever that happened to him, he had focused back on the basics. Take one step, figure it out, and go on to the next step. And the one after that. At some point it would start to make sense.

At least I hope to God it will.

It was then that the three men stepped from the outer rim of the darkness and blew up all his thoughtful plans. However, Devine had heard them coming and moved forward to confront them.

“Why, if it isn’t Detective Karl Hancock of NYPD, where no one knows your name.”

He looked at the other two men, carbon copies of Hancock, only white.

Hancock nodded. “Surprised it lasted as long as it did. You talked to them and told them about me and they went batshit, am I right?”

“Something like that.”

Devine looked at the other two guys as the rain started to fall. Remorseless bastards paid to do harm. He had seen enough of such men. They all pretty much looked the same. Zombies with guns.

Hancock took some gum from his pocket, popped it into his mouth, and started to chew it. His jacket was open. The Glock was there. They were all armed, Devine was sure of that. All he had was himself and whatever he could find to defend himself. He was pretty sure it would be enough. They had already made one cardinal mistake.

They didn’t kill me right away.

“Care to explain the subterfuge?” said Devine.

Hancock cracked a smile. “Subterfuge. Now there’s a word you don’t hear every day.”

“Seems the only one to fit, at least to me.”

Devine moved slowly to his left, an inch at a time, while not appearing to move at all.

“Who are you, Devine, really?”

“I can ask you the same thing.”

“You have upset some serious folks. They don’t like to be upset. That’s why they bring in guys like me.”

“I’m not sure what I’ve done to deserve the attention.”

“Not being square with me was part of it. Military dude, now trying to make it in the investment world? What kind of bullshit is that?”

“I can’t spend the rest of my life getting shot at.”

“But see, you’ve also been playing detective, asking questions. Getting involved in shit you shouldn’t be. That bothers people greatly.”

“Well, you’ve been doing the same. And it bothers me greatly, too. And Sara was my friend. I was naturally curious as to who killed her. But I did a deal with the head guy. It’s all good. Your services are no longer needed.”

“I seriously doubt that.”

That was a slip on Hancock’s part. He had just divulged something very important.

Now if I can just survive this encounter to use it.

“Care to explain that?”

“We didn’t come here to chitchat, Devine. And thanks, by the way, for telling me your workout schedule and where.”

“Yeah, I didn’t know you were a dirtbag back then.”

“Not a dirtbag, just a workingman, like you. And who do you work for, Devine, really? You don’t want to be where you are, clear to see. You’re there because someone put you there. Tell us who, and we go on our way.”

“And leave me for the high school football coach to find on the fifty-yard line with a bullet in my brain?”

“We won’t leave you here. We’re a class act. We do things right. There’s a lake not that far from here. You won’t feel a thing, swear to God.”

Devine had now moved, in total, nine inches to his right, without, in the poor light, seeming to have moved at all. It was like an optical illusion, and these guys had bought into it, slightly moving along with him to keep their relative positions the same and not even realizing they were doing it. It was like planets revolving around each other; so long as the distance and angle were the same you never focused on the actual movement. He had been taught this in close-quarter combat drills in the Army. And it was as true now as it had been then.

And they were overconfident, cocky because they outnumbered him; that was what separated guys like them from guys like him.

“We need information. If we have to beat it out of you first, we will.”

“There’s only three of you, so how will you manage that?”

“Army Ranger speaking?” said a grinning Hancock. “All badass, right? If you’re faster than a bullet, kudos to you. So, last chance: Who are you and why are you at Cowl and Comely?”

Devine moved another half inch until he felt the tire against his ankle. “I love capitalism, guys, just like you.”

“I don’t want to kill you, but orders are orders.”

“And who’s giving the orders?”

Hancock shook his head.

“Come on, Hancock or whatever the hell your name is. It’s not like I’ll be telling anybody. I’m heading for that nice little lake, right?”

“I can tell you that what this involves goes way beyond anything you can imagine. Sounds like a cliché from some lousy movie, I know. But in this case, it happens to be true. See, actually the real world is way more complicated and dangerous than how the movies and TV make it out to be.”

“Thanks for telling me basically squat.”

“It’s nothing personal. But this is how I put food into my family’s mouths. So nobody’s messing with that.”

“Just be prepared to deal with the consequences,” replied Devine as he tensed and bent slightly at the waist.

“Okay, we’re done.” Hancock looked down and pulled out his pistol just about the time the car tire hit him in the head, knocking him heels over ass.

The second tire flung by Devine slammed into the man next to Hancock and down he went, too.

The third man had his gun pointed right at Devine and was about to fire. The third guy had always been Devine’s worry bead.

Shit.

Then a loud crack sounded somewhere. The gunman whirled around to see what had caused it, giving Devine time to hit him at gut level. They went tumbling and the gun spun off into the darkness. As the men fought, Devine gripped the man’s throat, placed his rebar-strong thumb against the left carotid, and at the same time pressed his index finger dead center of the throat. He crushed the carotid with his thumb and used his index finger to rupture the trachea. The man stopped struggling and went limp.

Next moment, Devine was up and sprinting flat-out. As he passed by Hancock, who was trying to stand, Devine kicked him in the head, sending him hard back to the dirt, grunting in pain.

Devine jumped the waist-high fence and hit the ground running on the other side. As shots rang out, he zigzagged his way over and then in between two buildings, kicked it into high gear, and got free of the men’s sight lines. He made it back to his town house and called 911, telling the dispatcher what had happened. It was only then that he noticed he’d been wounded. The guy he killed must have had a knife, too, because Devine had a slash across one arm and a deeper cut in the palm of his hand. The loud noise, probably a car backfiring, had saved his ass. He cleaned and dressed the wounds and changed his clothes by the time the cops showed up.

They had checked out the football field first before heading over, the head cop told him.

“Nobody there now,” the cop said. “Dispatch said you thought you’d hurt one of them bad or maybe killed them, but you must’ve been mistaken. But we found some shell casings and some blood. You’re damn lucky, buddy. What the hell were you doing out there alone at that time? I mean, this is a pretty safe area, but you were just asking for it.”

Yeah, I was really asking for it, thought Devine.